Terrorism

I am writing in response to Donald Parks' letter on Nov. 8. I am by trade a teacher of philosophy to high school students. One of the subjects I teach is logic. In this class we learn pretty basic concepts that help us think rationally — like the idea that two wrongs don't make a right. That's inconsistent. If you condemn terrorism, then how can you justify committing it yourself? There's another thing we also study in logic class — it's called an analogy. If Mr. Parks suggests that using nuclear weapons to lay waste to the population of an entire country is an appropriate response to a criminal act perpetrated by a few individuals, then he should also ask why didn't Oklahoma use a nuclear bomb on Michigan as vengeance for the criminal act of Timothy McVeigh and the Michigan militia groups.

I can understand the idea of leaving no man behind and the prisoner swap, but that usually happens at the end of the war. But swapping Sgt. Bergdahl for five major Taliban leaders? Did we sign a peace treaty that we weren't told about? Is the war on terror over? Or is this an effort on President Obama's part to fulfill his campaign promise to close the prison at Guantanamo? I don't believe a peace treaty was signed. Maybe Obama surrendered. Frederick Klem Allentown

Q: The war on terrorism and recent events have been very difficult to explain to my child. My son asked me why everyone was cheering during recent news reports. I do not want him to think that violence is a solution. Can you help me find a way to discuss this with him? A: You know best how much information your child can handle, the Help for Families panel says. First of all, find out how much your child knows. "I would be cautious about trying to explain too much," says panelist Michael Daniels.

When they were together at a signing ceremony at Liberty High's college signing ceremony Thursday, Mariah Kondravy and Alyshia Dellatore were dressed quite nicely. It was hard to believe that either one is a terror to pitchers. But in uniform, there may not be a more frightful site to an opposing pitcher than having Kondravy or Dellatore step up to the plate. The two sluggers, fixtures in the Hurricanes' batting order for the last four seasons, will stay together even after graduating from Liberty in two months.

Join Dr. Ziad Munson of Lehigh University for a talk aimed at adults and older teenagers about terrorism. The group will meet inside the Gardner Room at the Emmaus Public Library at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13. Munson explains how efforts to rid the nation of al-Qaida have impacted terrorism efforts over the past decade, according to the library's website. For more information visit the library's website .

The ongoing concern with the trust of Muslims is not because of Islam. The cause is the association of Islam with terrorism. If Muslims would unite and demonstrate strong protest against the Islamic terrorist groups, I believe they would gain the support of the present objectors. The media reported projected violence by Muslims around the world if some preacher in Florida burned a book. How is it possible to justify such threatened violence for the burning of a book? The most disturbing report was aired by CNN, reporting that if the book was burned there would not be a Christian left alive in Iraq.

Young Neville Gardner had just hopped down from his perch atop a mailbox, where he was waiting for a ride. Moments later, a letter bomb exploded - blowing the mailbox to pieces, spraying shrapnel through a crowd and blowing both legs off a man standing near him. The sound of the blast, the shattering of shop windows and the screams of those maimed in the attack in Northern Ireland still echo in Gardner's mind more than 40 years later, he...

With that phone in your pocket, you can tweet, check Facebook, riddle the Internet with selfies, and fight terrorism. The Pennsylvania State Police announced a new cellphone app, called "See Something, Send Something," that shunts photos and notes to the Pennsylvania Criminal Intelligence Center where analysts comb through information and validate threats. State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said in a press release that the app gives concerned citizens a direct communication and reporting tool.

Responding to the Boston Marathon bombings, Morning Call reporters Peter Hall and Matt Assad wondered in "Life after terrorism" on April 21 whether the U.S. should "accept terrorism as a fact of life" similar to "Northern Ireland, Pakistan or Israel. " Specifically to Israel, the country and its citizens —Jews and Arab alike — have withstood decades of wanton terrorist attacks. Their hallmark is anything but a resignation to terrorism as "a fact of life. " Their society's foothold is on democracy, defiance and resilience, not acceptance of terrorism.

The news in my morning newspaper was unwelcome. Indeed, it was frightful and prophetic. But why should it be otherwise when agendas seeded and fertilized by politicians and statesmen run amok. No matter what ensign they wave from No. 10 Downing Street, the White House, the Houses of Parliament, Capitol Hill, the Kremlin or from a palace in Baghdad, their acts spell disaster with a capital D. Think Death, Depression, Dismemberment for warrior and civilian alike. "Pakistani fundamentalists claim 35 of their fighters killed in US air strikes on Kabul," trumpeted a 48-point headline.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's office will charge three teenage girls as adults in connection with several assaults on Temple University students Friday evening. Najee Bilaal, 16, Zaria Estes, 15, and Kanesha Gainey, 15, have already been arraigned, D.A. spokeswoman Tasha Jamerson said. Estes and Bilaal are being held on a $100,000 bail, and Gainey's bail was set at $75,000. Police connected the girls to three attacks that took place within 15 minutes around North 17th Street near Temple's campus.

Gentlemen prefer blondes. This guy prefers Swiss. As in cheese - the kind normally found sandwiched between corned beef and rye on a Reuben. But this particular man is using his dairy products to satisfy a different craving. The Mayfair Town Watch reported yesterday on its Facebook page that the "Swiss Cheese Pervert" has been terrorizing neighborhood women. According to the group, the suspect, a heavyset white man estimated to be in his late 40s or early 50s, approaches women while driving a silver or black sedan with his genitals exposed.

PHILADELPHIA — The fire that fueled Colleen LaRose's vision of violent jihad has faded after four years in jail. Housebound in her suburban Philadelphia home, LaRose, formerly of Pennsburg, Montgomery County, found a purpose in the online forums where she interacted with Muslim extremists using the screen name JihadJane. She proudly accepted an assignment from her "brother" in Pakistan, who held himself out as a member of the Taliban. And she traveled to the Netherlands and Ireland in a quest to kill a cartoonist who had depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. But after an encounter with a couple who showed her the peace in Islam, her arrest on terrorism charges and losing her mother while in prison, LaRose said Monday she is changed.

The news in my morning newspaper was unwelcome. Indeed, it was frightful and prophetic. But why should it be otherwise when agendas seeded and fertilized by politicians and statesmen run amok. No matter what ensign they wave from No. 10 Downing Street, the White House, the Houses of Parliament, Capitol Hill, the Kremlin or from a palace in Baghdad, their acts spell disaster with a capital D. Think Death, Depression, Dismemberment for warrior and civilian alike. "Pakistani fundamentalists claim 35 of their fighters killed in US air strikes on Kabul," trumpeted a 48-point headline.

It was on Nov. 7, 1938 - 75 years ago - when 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan bought a handgun in Paris. He then entered the German Embassy where he was met by a low-ranking German official, Ernst vom Rath. "Here is the document in the name of 12,000 Jews," he shouted before firing five times. Vom Rath was hit but did not die until two days later, on Nov. 9. Late on that day and for most of the next, the Nazi party unleashed one of history's most barbarous pogroms, Crystal Night.

With that phone in your pocket, you can tweet, check Facebook, riddle the Internet with selfies, and fight terrorism. The Pennsylvania State Police announced a new cellphone app, called "See Something, Send Something," that shunts photos and notes to the Pennsylvania Criminal Intelligence Center where analysts comb through information and validate threats. State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said in a press release that the app gives concerned citizens a direct communication and reporting tool.

In his recent speech on terrorism and national security, President Barack Obama performed superbly as explainer in chief, a role in which he often hasn't succeeded. It may not matter much. However belatedly, Obama offered a cogent policy rationale for his reliance on unmanned drones to kill suspected terrorists (with collateral civilian casualties) and revisited the need to shut the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. More broadly, he made a compelling case for moving from a full-time war footing against terrorism to a more nuanced and normal policy.

If "terrorism is the war of the poor and war is the terrorism of the rich," as Sir Peter Ustinov said, then how can we ever hope to stop the one by blindly and perhaps profitably promoting the other? Lewis Lucas Catasauqua

Very smart libertarians often make an argument against muscular counterterrorism efforts (I prefer this term over "war on terror," because "war on terror" reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld). It goes like this: Why do we obsess over terrorism when a) guns, b) drunken drivers, c) any number of terrible diseases, and d) bathtubs kill so many more people each year than radical Islamists ever have? The latest distillation of this argument came this week from Conor Friedersdorf, on the Atlantic's website.

In his recent speech on terrorism and national security, President Barack Obama performed superbly as explainer in chief, a role in which he often hasn't succeeded. It may not matter much. However belatedly, Obama offered a cogent policy rationale for his reliance on unmanned drones to kill suspected terrorists (with collateral civilian casualties) and revisited the need to shut the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. More broadly, he made a compelling case for moving from a full-time war footing against terrorism to a more nuanced and normal policy.